Deutsch homophones

dehnen/denen

"dehnen" is a verb; "denen" is an unknown - grammar picks the spelling, not sound. Size rank #38 of 483 German groups.

Data vintage

Grammar picks the spelling

Same sound, different grammar: "dehnen" arrives as a verb, while "denen" is an unknown. Once the sentence role is fixed, only one spelling fits.

Spelling pairs in this cluster

  • Shared stem "de" then splits - "dehnen" (6 letters) vs "denen" (5).

Orthographic DNA of this cluster

Shared letters across dehnen, denen: den. Private letters are the ones only one spelling owns: the eye's fastest tell once sound is out of the picture.

  • dehnen

    6 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCCVC

    Inventory dehn · private h

  • denen

    5 letters · 2 vowels · shape CVCVC

    Inventory den · no private letters vs siblings

Pick the spelling from the meaning

  • Write "dehnen" when you mean: etwas ausweiten, strecken, vergrößern
  • Write "denen" when you mean: Dativ Plural des Relativpronomens der

Known mistypes of these spellings

Edit-distance variants recorded against this cluster: useful when a search or OCR feed lands on the wrong form.

  • dehnenddehnen · dehenn · dehhnen · dehnenn · dehnne · dehnnen
  • denenddenen · deenn · denenn · denne · dennen · dneen

Each spelling

dehnen

verb · /ˈdeːnən/ · #26,818 frequency

etwas ausweiten, strecken, vergrößern

denen

unknown · /ˈdeːnən/ · #248 frequency

Dativ Plural des Relativpronomens der

Nearby German homophone groups

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list